


The Smart One

by helsinkibaby



Category: 21 Jump Street (TV), Rent - Larson
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-04-13
Updated: 2005-04-13
Packaged: 2018-02-14 17:01:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2199786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helsinkibaby/pseuds/helsinkibaby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No-one expects the fat kid to be smart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Smart One

**Author's Note:**

> Written for The Pairings That Ate Fandom.

You want to know the only thing I learned in high school? Both the first time around, and the numerous times I went back undercover?

No-one expects the fat kid to be smart.

Which sounds harsh in these early nineties days of political correctness I know, but trust me on this one: I was the fat kid in all those high school classes. I was the class clown, the comic relief, the one that the teachers never noticed, never paid much attention to when I moved into their classes, content to just let me sit there and never ask me questions.

Which was fine with me, both times. Because in my actual high school, I had more than enough to worry about at home without teachers getting on my case.

And when I was undercover? I could fit in anywhere at a moment’s notice, and, not being asked questions much, was able to observe everything that was going on around me.

It’s part of what made me a good cop.

You’d think, hearing me talk like this, that I miss those days. Short answer is sometimes. More complicated answer is yes, I miss the work, miss my friends, miss the thrill of the chase. But I don’t miss the danger, don’t miss the hours, and I sure as hell don’t miss the pain I put Clavo through, worrying every time I walked out the door that I wasn’t coming back again. No, I made the right decision for my kid, and I don’t regret it.

We got a good life here, the two of us. I bring him to school in the mornings, work at the bowling alley every day, take evenings off so that I can be with him. I work weekends, except when he’s got a ball game and I, as coach, have to be there, and sometimes I bring him in here with me, and he gets to wander around the games machines, sometimes even play me at bowling. Not too often though; kid’s got an arm on him.

So what, I hear you wondering, has me harking back to my Jump Street days?

Well, it’s something to do with the fact that now, as then, I’ve got the ability to look around me and see what’s going on, see things that others have missed. And that now, as then, I’ve got a partner who needs quite a bit of keeping an eye on.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that Tom’s incapable of looking after himself.

Not really.

It’s got more to do with the fact that Tom is what we in the business of looking at these things call a bleeding heart soft touch. Not only that, but he’s a bleeding heart soft touch with a Lancelot complex. Give him a damsel in distress and he’s a happy camper, at least until the next one comes along, and they always do with him. I think it’s the cheekbones that attract them.

Still, I got a feeling this latest one is more trouble than even Tom Hanson can handle.

I knew there was something about her the moment she walked in the door. Not that she’s the only teenage kid we have working here, far from it. Which isn’t something that we advertise, but this is a small town, we’re a family-oriented business, and even if we shouldn’t strictly be hiring some of these kids, child labour laws being what they are and all that, their parents know that if they’re working at this bowling alley, they’re going to be treated right and paid fairly. The kids know that too, which is why we’ve actually got a waiting list for help wanted positions, with any number of kids wanting to work for us.

There are days when I honestly wish that we’d just skipped over her name.

But hindsight’s twenty-twenty, and a couple of months ago, the name Mimi Marquez didn’t raise any kind of red flag with me. She walked in, interviewed with us both, and sure, she was pretty enough, respectful enough, swore up and down that she was a hard worker, that she wanted this job. And we talked to her friends and we talked to her parents and we hired her, noting from the get-go that she was a good worker, didn’t mind working extra shifts, didn’t mind covering for her friends, didn’t mind staying late to clean up. She was an employee in a million.

It wasn’t long before I noticed that there was something… I don’t know, something off about her. I put it down to my imagination, a cop’s instinct working overtime, tried to ignore the little voice that told me my instincts are hardly ever wrong. But I couldn’t, and that instinct began screaming ever more loudly when Tom told me that he’d noticed that something was the matter with her too. But Tom being Tom, he hadn’t just left it at observation, oh no. He’d actually talked to her, let her cry on his shoulder, and she’d told him all about her step-dad, and how he wasn’t a good guy, how she wasn’t happy at home, and that’s why she liked being here so much.

“You think he’s abusing her?” I asked him one night, when everyone had finally cleared out, and we were sitting in the office cashing out. Tom usually volunteered to do that, knowing that I had to be up early in the mornings to get Clavo to school, but on this particular night, I felt that this conversation was long overdue. “Because man, if he is…”

“I know that,” Tom told me, holding up his hand. “But she’s never said that… she drops enough hints… but she’s never come right out and said it.”

I pictured Mr Marquez in my mind, a mean-looking, burly guy, rumoured to be more than a little fond of the sauce, and my stomach turned over. “I wouldn’t put it past him,” I said. “But if you suspect…”

“I should what?” Tom sounded angry, frustrated, and I couldn’t blame him. “Report him? Break up the family for possibly no reason at all? What if she’s just a kid who doesn’t like her step-dad? It happens.”

“You don’t believe that,” I countered.

“No.” His reply was instant, sincere. “But I can’t go to Social Services on a feeling… we both know that. Just… just give me time. Let me talk to her some more, see what I can find out.”

God forgive me, I let it go at that.

Because I knew. I knew that there was something more going on with him than met the eye, something more than what he was telling me. But I didn’t say anything; I just looked. Looked at the two of them talking, laughing, working together. Looked at the way Mimi started looking at him, as if he hung the sun and the moon and the stars all at once, and did it just for her. Looked at the way he started to look at her, as if she was far more than a damsel in distress, and the most amazing thing he’d ever seen.

I looked, and I did not like, but I didn’t say anything, not even when I heard the other kids whispering about it when they thought that I wasn’t listening.

I didn’t say anything about it until the night that I walked into the office and found Tom holding Mimi, whose arms were wrapped around him.

They sprang apart when I walked in, Tom looking faintly guilty, Mimi’s face – streaked with tears and mascara – going pale. She muttered something and ran out of the room, and Tom tried to go after him, but I stopped him, grabbing him by the arm and physically shoving him back into the room.

“You want to explain to me what the hell you think you’re doing?” I growled, because faced with such glaring evidence, I couldn’t exactly ignore what was going on between them any more.

“Doug, it’s not what you think…”

Except it was exactly what I thought, and we both knew it. “Tom, she’s fifteen years old,” I reminded him. “You, you of all people, know the kind of trouble you could get into if people find out about this…”

“Nothing’s happened between us, Doug!” he insisted. “She’s just a kid…who’s in trouble… she needs someone…”

“But it doesn’t have to be you,” I pointed out to him, but even then, I knew it was no good – he had that stubborn look in his eyes that told me loud and clear he’d already made up his own mind about what he was going to do, and that nothing I could say was going to make a blind bit of difference. “Take a step back,” I pleaded, but he was shaking his head.

“I can’t, Doug… she needs me.”

And with that, he turned his back on me, walked right out of the office.

After that, you’d better believe that I kept a close eye on them, and maybe they knew that, because I was never able to catch them at anything untoward. Which didn’t really matter, because every time they stood within spitting distance of each other, there was… I don’t know how to describe it, but there was something there. Some chemistry, some something. I’d’ve thought I was imagining things until I heard some of the other kids talking about it when they thought that I wasn’t listening. Course, when they realised I was there, they clammed up quick… but I’d heard enough to let me know that people were talking.

If they were talking then, I can only imagine what they’re going to be doing now.

Because tonight, I was home with Clavo, him doing his homework at the table, me doing the dishes at the sink and hoping that tonight’s homework won’t throw up too many awkward questions… there’s only so many times you can tell the kid to phone his Aunt Judy, you know what I mean? Turns out it wouldn’t have mattered anyway, because the phone rang, and it was for me.

I knew there was trouble the second I picked up the receiver and heard Jack’s voice on the other end. Jack is a high school senior who’s been working at the alley for the last two years, and he’s one of the most solid kids I’ve ever had the pleasure of encountering. We know, Tom and I, that when Jack is working, everything is well in hand, and there have been times, rare, but there have been times, when neither of us has been working and we’ve left it all in his hands. We’ve never had a problem with him, and never once has he interrupted me at home in the evenings.

Until tonight, when he sounded vaguely panicked, and told me that Tom had shown up late to work, drunk out of his mind and locked himself in the office. They could hear cursing and swearing and breaking glass, and could I please get myself over there and see what the problem was?

Homework was stopped, dishes were left to soak as I threw Clavo in the back of the truck and hauled ass to the alley – there didn’t seem to be time to worry about finding a sitter. I left Clavo at the front of the house, telling the kids to keep an eye on him, and now I find myself standing outside our office door, half afraid to knock, because who knows what I’m going to find?

I push the door open slowly, and no doubt about it, the place is thrashed. My worst fears aren’t confirmed though, not once I see Tom slumped on the couch, his head in his hands. There’s not a trace of blood anywhere on him, or anywhere around, and I close the door tightly behind me, saying his name.

He hears me, and he looks up, and I can’t remember the last time I saw my buddy looking so defeated. His face is pale, dark circles underneath his eyes, his hair sticking up all over the place. When he speaks, his voice is slurred, and I hope to hell he didn’t drive over here. “She called me this morning,” he says, and I don’t need to ask who she is. “Said her father heard the gossip about us… he beat her up Doug… she was crying… in pain…I told her to stay where she was… that I’d come and get her…”

I want to smack my hand to my forehead and cry, “No, no, no,” but somehow find the wherewithal to keep my mouth shut.

“There was no-one home when I got there… so I jimmied the lock of the back door…”

Felony breaking and entering, to add to driving under the influence, not to mention the sex with a minor charge… this is getting better and better.

“And in her room… there was a note… for me…”

He’s holding out a piece of paper, one that’s crumpled and torn, and it’s shaking in his hand. I take it, open it out and recognise Mimi’s handwriting immediately. “I can’t do this to you anymore,” it reads. “It’s better this way.”

I find Tom’s eyes, and find them filled with tears. “She’s gone, Doug,” he says simply. “I drove around, looking for her… tried everywhere I could think of… she’s just… gone…”

I sit down beside him, pat his shoulder awkwardly. “We’ll find her,” I say, though I’m really not sure that’s such a good idea, and for the lack of anything else to say, I repeat myself. “We’ll find her.”

It doesn’t sound any better the second time around, and Tom shakes his head. “No we won’t,” he says. “She doesn’t want to be found.” Which is surely true, and we’ve both seen too many runaways disappearing through the cracks of society to have any illusions about how easy it is, or about what she might end up doing to support herself. Then, so quietly that I barely hear them, comes the words I’ve been dreading. “I love her, Doug.”

“I know, man,” I say, patting his shoulder once more before standing up and pushing him down on the couch, hoping that he’ll take the hint, try to sleep it off. He goes willingly, but he doesn’t close his eyes, not for a long time, and I sit beside him until he goes to sleep.

Sometimes, being the smart one really sucks.  



End file.
